


Gunpowder and Freesias

by PriestOfRathma



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: AU, Angst, Character Death, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Falling In Love, Gun Violence, Loss and Trauma, NOT PWP, New Moon AU, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Romance, Smoking, Smut, Torture, Violence, love is not easy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 12:34:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17488130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PriestOfRathma/pseuds/PriestOfRathma
Summary: When Edward left Bella in New Moon, she became intensely depressed. As she came out of her depression, Bella took the money that the Cullens wired her, and she applied to colleges. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy, she pursued a life in the military. Now a medically retired Navy SEAL veteran, Bella has decided to settle down on the coast of Lake Iliamna and wait for Victoria’s inevitable wrath. There she meets the last thing she thought she would meet, another golden eyed vampire. New Moon AU, Bella Swan/Tanya Denali





	Gunpowder and Freesias

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DisasterLesbean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterLesbean/gifts).



> Note: 
> 
> With women being more openly admitted into special forces programs, I wrote this AU with the underlying assumption of a US military where it wouldn’t be abnormal for a woman to become a SEAL. This is one of the few moments where, as a writer, I’m hoping for readers’ suspension of disbelief. So, if anyone looks up a timeline online of women in the US military’s special forces, please forgive me not caring about reality in this moment. If the canon novel timeline is followed, Bella would become a SEAL around 2013.
> 
> Beta Read by: DisasterLesbean

# Prologue

##  _Courage is found in unlikely places._

### Bella’s POV

Alaska smells like Forks sometimes. It’s just as wet and green where I live. The mornings are colder, but when I step out of my house and look out on the lake, I’m surprised by the beauty here. At one time in my life, I’d have hated this place. I’d been too used to Phoenix and the warmth. I held on to familiarity as a child, as well as trying to imitate my mother to some degree. As I light my cigarette, I’m glad for the fresh pressed coffee I made earlier. The lake is peaceful, and I love these quiet early mornings on my dock -- just some coffee and a cigarette. Cigarettes in the morning have become almost ritualistic to me, and the only time I deviate from cigarettes in the mornings tends to be a blunt if my body aches. Sativas of course, no need to be duller in the mornings. Alcohol and cigars tend to feel like an after dinner type of indulgence.

I have to pull my jacket on, covering the tattoos and scars — all but the facial scar that is. It’s too cold. I wish I had remembered to grab a hat or a beanie. I shaved the sides and back of my head a while back. The top is pulled back into a short ponytail, so that isn’t gonna help with the cold. Perhaps it was a blunt type of morning, too late now.

After everything life has thrown my way, I think I finally understand my dad. I keep feeling more like Charlie these days or at least like his more ritualistic habits. Charlie must have had an early, deep insight into the meaning of life. After my medical retirement from the Navy SEALs, I’ve come to the conclusion that these moments of peace are treasures that most let slip from their fingers or ignore completely. 

After the Cullens left me, my heart felt like it had been torn out. I’d loved them — all of them. And their abandonment cut deeply. Edward was right though. I am human, and time heals all wounds. Eventually, after college and during the military, I realized what Edward had done. He’s always had a martyr’s complex. It made sense when I thought about that, about him leaving to save me from the ‘dangers’ that he and his family presented. And to save me from what he must have seen as my human, youthful folly. His arrogance in that irritates me a bit now.

Sadly, when I was younger, I couldn’t get past my own insecurities. I thought I wasn’t worthy of him, and that fear made it easy to buy into his words in the forest. If it hadn’t been for my more nomadic lifestyle following high school, until recently, I’m sure I’d have heard from him in some manner. He wasn’t good at letting go of anything for a prolonged time.

Once I let go of the hurt, I tried to get my life on some kind of track. I took the scholarship money that obviously came from Alice or Esme, and I applied to universities across the country in various departments. I applied to everything from UCLA’s history department to MIT’s physics program. I hadn’t known what I wanted to do; diversity seemed the best option When I heard back from all of the colleges, the United States Naval Academy gave me the best financial offer on a program in Aerospace Engineering. I focused on the Aeronautics track and graduated by twenty-two with honors. I converted my social life into time for sleep, and it helped my grades immensely. My social skills, not so much.

After graduation, I was torn between going into commercial engineering and the military. I had slowly become more interested in the military throughout college. I knew that the monsters in the dark weren’t just myths. Learning and training how to kill something like a vampire would be a life skill I could use. I could always study on the occult in private, just in case vampires aren’t the only things prowling the night.

I eventually decided. I became a Naval Flight Officer, and I spent three years on Boeing EA-186 Growlers for electronic countermeasures. I got antsy though — bored mostly. I wanted combat experience to help my understand how to survive with the knowledge of the supernatural. So, after those three years, at age twenty-five, I applied to an opening as a Navy SEAL Officer. Brutal seems a light word for the application and training process I went through. Somehow I made it. Stubbornness has always been one of my strongest qualities. It was my greatest strength in my time with the Navy SEALs.

It kept me alive when things went to shit. My unit came across some horror show that reminded me of some Tears of the Sun nightmare. The difference was we got the okay to intervene by both the US and local government. What we didn’t know about was enemy reinforcements that had been ravaging another nearby village. They joined the fight and had us pinned. The fight was the worst I’ve ever been in and the worst I’ve been hurt — including my encounter with James.

We eventually had to retreat back into the village we just liberated. The plan was to set up a defensive position that they couldn’t break, and then we would receive help from an allied unit. We had to hold out. The warlord behind the attacks actually came with the troops. This was a moment we couldn’t pass up. The retreat got fucked though. I realized someone needed to hold a line so the rest could make it to the village.

It worked. I held the line long enough for my unit to retreat — no casualties. Got shot, burned, and enough broken bones to make this morning cold bite a little too much to remain completely comfortable. Plus, a grenade went up on my right. The shrapnel tore across me, and it left scars like lightning across my arms, torso, and legs. The most visually prominent was on my face. Hit my cheekbone and tore straight down and across my lips, ending at my chin. Jake said it makes me look like a badass. I think it makes it hard as hell to smile without looking like I’m going to kill someone.

I woke up in a hospital a week later. Apparently the plan worked. Reinforcements came, and the warlord was killed. In the frenzy, the enemy assumed I was dead. My unit didn’t, or at least they came back for my corpse. They dragged my mostly dead carcass into a helicopter, saved my life. At twenty-nine, I ended up with a Medal of Honor and an honorable medical discharge. After that, I moved back in with Charlie for a little bit. I needed some help.

While I was in the Navy, before the SEALs, Two things happened with Charlie. Firstly, he married Sue Clearwater. Secondly, he won big on a lottery ticket about two years after they married — 384 million big. As I recovered, we talked about what I planned on doing with life. He came to me one day with an idea. He saw a property in Alaska that he thought suited my interests. I wanted a place where I could find some quiet after everything. I wanted to read books like when I was younger. I wanted to sort through everything inside me that had snowballed after the Cullens left. In short, I craved that feeling of serenity that I hadn’t felt in well over a decade.

The property was 157 acres on Lake Iliamna on the northeastern side of the lake, north of Porcupine Island and south of E Bay Road. It was airplane compliant and near several of the best fishing locations in Alaska. The property only cost $425,000. He went the extra mile for me though he invested in a small dock, a sea-plane, a road connecting my property to E Bay Road, and fencing around the property to deter poachers, lost hikers, and fishers. He even added on the security measures I suggested. He knew about vampires and the La Push wolves thanks to his marriage with Sue and an immensely embarrassing encounter with Seth post-shifting. The security might even hold off a vampire if used right — by say someone with Navy SEAL experience.

Charlie gave 100 million to the La Push Reservation to be utilized for education, medicine, and quality of life measures. He felt driven. I’ve never seen him so dead-set on something. I’m not sure if it stemmed from his lifelong friendship with the Blacks, Clearwaters, and other members of the tribe or his marriage to Sue, but in his words, ‘money doesn’t follow you in the grave and we should do more good in this world than take Bells.’ Despite his career, I fear he felt like he hadn’t left enough of a positive impact on the world. He gave me 50 million to begin my life over again. I think he put the rest towards various charities.

He planned to live a simple life with Sue in La Push. He visits and plans to visit — mostly during fishing seasons and the odd holiday. I moved into the Alaskan property a short while ago.

I converted a living area into a library with a lounge and a side patio into a small, outdoor gym. The military left me with a few benefits — a healthy muscular build, better balance and reflexes, and some great skills (piloting, shooting, and explosives knowledge among them). But like all skills, they’ll diminish if I don’t work on them. The gym and the sea plane will help with some, but I’m currently working on building my own person gun range at the moment.

That’s why I love this moment — the cold and the burning cigarette, the coffee, the dash of whiskey. I’m finding peace. And I’m getting ready. I’ve spoken with Billy and the other La Push elders. I’ve looked into things in my last. Victoria has been following me for over a decade. My connection to the pack and nomadic lifestyle has kept her at bay for a decade. But she’ll come for me soon. Maybe after I’m done with my coffee I’ll start to work on that. I may have set up the defenses -- claymores, pits with C4, and other explosive and armor penetrating traps, but I need to be able to practice my aim. I’ll be ready for that bitch when she comes.


End file.
